


Those Temptations Which We Share

by SouthernLynxx



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Ambiguous John Marston/Arthur Morgan, Ambiguous Relationships, Arthur Morgan Is Very Patient, Chapter 2: Horseshoe Overlook (Red Dead Redemption 2), Drinking, Multi, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28074231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernLynxx/pseuds/SouthernLynxx
Summary: It's the night of Sean's return and Arthur is simply trying to sleep.
Relationships: Abigail Roberts Marston/John Marston, John Marston & Arthur Morgan, John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	Those Temptations Which We Share

**Author's Note:**

> So...this fic _wasn't meant to be what it is_. It was originally intended to be a simply, light-hearted interaction after I discovered (with immense hilarity via meme) that Karen and Sean do the dirty in John's tent, the poor bastard. Somehow ambigious relationships and tension got caught up in the mess and here we are!   
>  I also tried to improve my writing with added bits of detail and different structures, so hopefully that worked out ok.

Sleep is very rarely an elusive thing for Arthur Morgan. When you’re so accustomed to sleeping where you fall — against tree stumps or under carts, swaying precariously on the backs of equally wary mounts, in random fields after the liquor has left you three sheets to the wind — you discover there is very little that can disturb a full night’s rest.

So it’s with a feeling of disorientation that Arthur finds himself stirring from sleep, a small, irritated groan escaping him as he shifts on his cot. 

He’d gone to sleep with Sean’s return party in full swing, and it was still on-going by the sounds of it — though perhaps on the cusp of winding down. It has progressed long past the point Arthur would usually be present for, at least since he’d tempered his drinking and aged into a surly old man. Whether he could still drink the younger members under the table or not meant nothing when he could barely crawl out his bed the next morning. Meanwhile, the younger lads simply staggered about with little more than a sore head and a hankering for a big breakfast. So Arthur, by habit, had gone to bed after nursing two or three bottles of beer and joining in a few campfire songs. 

He can hear Javier strumming along to what could be the fourth rendition of Ring Dang Doo, the accompanying voices joyously off-key and interspersed with clinking bottles. It’s comforting and familiar, and makes it easy to recall the swell of good fortune and happy, carefree voices that had seen him to sleep. 

But he can’t determine what could have woken him, until—

“Aaaarthuuur.”

It’s a not-quite whisper that makes the gravelly voice seem even rougher, and Arthur never quite understood why people felt the need to whisper when trying to wake someone up — he guesses alcohol plays a part in this particular sample of reasoning. Regardless, it had apparently worked. 

“Marston, what are you doing?” He hisses, looking over his shoulder to peer at the silhouette barely outlined by the firelight. The younger man lingers by the opening of his tent, the canvas walls pegged down to fend off the evening breeze which still has a frosty nip to it. 

“Can-can I sleep with you?” The man asks, his voice a touch too loud and slurred with drink. Arthur rolls onto his back, his frown twisting with confusion and brows furrowing together. 

“What? Go sleep in your own tent, Marston. Christ,” he mutters, dropping his head back down with the intention of going back to sleep. It proves fruitless, and he should have known better when John shuffles his feet and drums his fingers against the nearest tent pole.

_“Can’t.”_

He waits for further explanation. When it doesn’t come, Arthur rubs a hand down his face with an annoyed sigh.

“What do you mean, _can’t?”_

John’s answer is steeped with such indignation that Arthur is glad it’s dark so he doesn’t have to try and hide his smirk.

“Karen and Sean are shaggin’ an’ they won’t get out. Bet they won’t clean up neither. ‘M just real _tired,_ Arthur.” 

The slightest whine to John’s voice would be telling enough of his inebriation, if he didn’t also have the habit of slipping so casually back to calling him Arthur when he was drunk. Like what little sense of self-preservation the man had completely deserted him with the help of the bottle.

“Go sleep with your woman,” he orders, waving his hand in the vague hope it would actually work in getting the man to clear off. But John is bullheaded even when sober, and drink also had the annoying effect of invigorating that frustrating tenacity in him. 

“Not my woman. Not my boy,” he mutters, ignoring Arthur’s glare — if he could even see it.

Arthur blows out a breath and stares up at the ceiling of his tent, resignation already beginning to take root in the form of a headache. 

“‘Sides, she’ll just go off ‘bout me drinkin’, as if everyone ain’t drunk. It’s a party for cryin’ out loud,” he continues to ramble as he stumbles further into the tent despite Arthur’s protest — an illegible noise of vowels. “C’mon, Arthur. I’ll- I’ll sleep on the floor,” he mumbles, already dropping to his knees beside the cot, like he was truly going to sleep on the goddamn grass. 

Arthur has half a mind to let him — _after_ kicking him out of his tent. 

“For the love of— get up here,” he growls, exasperation winning out as he scruffs the man by the collar of his shirt and pulls him up. He doesn’t have much leverage, laying down no more than two feet off the ground, so it’s strength and annoyance alone that has him wrestling John bodily over him, bullying him into the sliver of cot-space between Arthur and the wagon that made up the third wall of his tent. 

“See, wasn’t so hard,” John mumbles, words slurring with drink and tiredness and Arthur has to resist dumping him back onto the floor. He sits up, pulling his thin blanket out from under John and wrestling the man’s boots from his feet. Letting them fall somewhere in the dark with little care.

“Always were a pain in the ass, Marston,” Arthur mutters, though there’s little heat anymore. He shifts so he’s on his side. Perhaps it would have been smarter to sleep with his back to the other man, but the thought only crosses his mind when he’s already settled down to find John watching him, face inches from his own. It isn’t an unfamiliar intimacy, they’d shared cots and bedrolls many times over the years, with many gang members, but it’s always been different with John, for as long as Arthur could remember.

Right now, as tired as John looks, those dark eyes seem clearer as he shifts closer so they can lie comfortably on the narrow bed. His leg slots neatly between Arthur’s, his arm slung over his chest, and Arthur’s hand finds a place to rest on the jut of John’s prominent hip. Had he been less exhausted, less softened by the relief of their rare good fortune, he might have pulled his hand away, agitated by the audacious intimacy and _ease_ with which he carried out the action.

“You’re thinkin’ awful hard,” John murmurs, pillowing his head in Arthur’s palm which lay between them, bringing them even closer together. He doesn’t even mind the sour tinge of alcohol on John’s breath. Despite himself, his thumb soothes a light, repetitive path over the crest of John’s uninjured cheek. Now adjusted to the low light, he can just pick out the details of the stitches holding together the injured half of John’s face.

“What are we doin’, John,” Arthur asks quietly. Even though it’s phrased as a question, John must recognise it for what it is. So, he does what does best — he ignores it. 

“You’re always so warm,” he says instead, nuzzling into the dry rough skin of Arthur’s palm as if it’s really any better than the worn-thin pillow beneath it. And that answer alone takes Arthur back. Back to the blizzard-bound mining town of Colter, where the howls of wolves couldn’t be differentiated from that of the wind, and all eyes in that main cabin had fixed on him like he was a wolf in their midst. 

The way Hosea had watched him, sharp old eyes picking up the slightest twitch in his expression, the tension in his shoulders. The way the room had felt frozen through despite the fire burning in the grate. The way Abigail had looked at him, her eyes flinty with the pain of an aged suspicion — coveted and worn and worried — being found true. The way she’d set her jaw, proud and slighted, and nodded her permission. How he’d shed his coat and his shirt and trousers down to his union suit in front of them all, ignoring the bite of frost on the floorboards, and slid into the cot alongside John — who was still feverish, barely lucid, trembling with cold, and asking for _Arthur._ Not his wife, not either of his fathers, but _Arthur_ to keep him warm. 

Being in no condition to sit, John had gone willingly where Arthur had nudged and shifted him, until he was lying stiffly on his back with John partially draped over him and thieving Arthur’s freely given heat with a relieved noise.

It was the quiet mumble of _‘you’re always warm,’_ against Arthur’s shoulder that had sent Abigail fleeing the seat by the bed and disappearing with a slam of the cabin door. Arthur had managed not to wince, but he’d never felt more exposed than when he’d lain there, feeling the stares and judgements of the other occupants pinning him down, more smothering than the physical weight of the oblivious man lying across him. 

He didn’t know what they thought, hell, he still didn’t know. But he’d kept his distance, reinforced the walls and the animosity between himself and his once-brother once he’d removed himself from that bed and redressed without a word. 

But just like that, John has managed to tear it all down without even realising it. 

“Arthur...is this ok?” John asks, his words slurred with the languor of sleep. Arthur strokes his thumb across the man’s cheek one more time, soothing the line of worry creasing his forehead. 

“Yeah. Yeah John. Go to sleep,” he mutters, knowing in the morning there will be looks. Maybe questions. Questions he can’t answer because he himself doesn’t know. 

Despite the tumultuous thoughts whirling inside him, the uncertainties and the unnaturalness of how natural this feels, the maelstrom is eased by the pressure of John’s arm around him, pulling them closer together until they’re sharing the same breath.

He doesn’t know what they’re doing — the unknown which lurks and readies itself to rise with the rest of camp the next day unsettling — but it’s comforting and familiar despite its strangeness, and it’s enough to lure Arthur back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and concrit are always welcome <3


End file.
